A Rock and a Hard Place

Bulls’ front-office honcho Arturas Karnisovas has constructed himself a team that keeps beating the best while losing to the worst in the NBA. No easy feat that. Consider that the Bulls have two victories apiece against the Bucks, Celtics and Heat, the three conference leaders in the East. But let the Houston Rockets come to town, like they did Monday night, and it’s a case of how low can they go? Unfortunately, there are more bad teams than good ones in the NBA, which could explain the Bulls’ 15-19 record. They added their latest victory on Wednesday against the visiting Bucks. As he has since arriving here as a sign-and-trade last season, DeMar DeRozan donned his Superman cape, scoring 42 points in a 119-113 overtime win against Giannis Antetokuonmpo and Grayson “What a Punk” Allen. Enter the rock and the hard place. The Bulls are not a particularly young team or good team. At age 33, DeRozan stands out by far as the best player (shame on you, Zach LaVine). DeRozan was taken with the ninth pick in the 2009 draft. Oh, if only the Bulls had traded up to get him, rather than be satisfied with the likes of James Johnson with the number sixteen pick. Better late than never, I guess. Here's the thing. Take away DeRozan, and what do the Bulls have? LaVine? Nikola Vucevic? Trust me, no team will be beating a path to Karnisovas’ door at the trading deadline for either of those two. But how much would a contending team be willing to offer for a 33-year old forward? Right now, the Bulls are better off winning with DeRozan than going the draft-pick(s) route. Rock and a hard place, for sure.

SOP

My daughter the baseball snoop called last night to ask, “Did you hear about White Sox tickets for next season?” This not being the central focus of my existence, I answered in the negative. According to Clare, it looks as if the lower-bowl seats we like will be going up in price, not because of a general price hike—after a 81-81 season, I would hope not—but on account of a new grouping of various sections. Sound confusing? I thought so. Apparently, people on social media are passing around a map with the new groupings. For argument’s sake, let’s say the Sox have no intention of a general price hike. Fine, then it would behoove them to address rumors to the contrary. Only what do we get on the team website? Stuff about fan predictions (nothing on ticket pricing) and inbox answers from the team reporter (again, nothing ticket related). This is standard operating procedure for the team—absolute silence until they decide otherwise, fallout be damned. I’d say something about cutting off a nose to spite a face, but, knowing SOP, I don’t have to.

Gifts

I received not one but two White Sox team autographed balls for Christmas, 1970 and 1980. Talk about happy. Anytime I can collect a Walt Williams’ autograph is cause for celebration. Mission accomplished, 1970. Throw in Luke Appling (coach) with Luis Aparicio and Bart Johnson, well, it’s a very merry Christmas. Did I mention John Matias? I’m looking to mark my life, at least in part, with autographed baseballs this way. In this case, high school graduation and marriage. I can hear the wedding bells ring by reading off the names of Mike Proly; Leo Sutherland; Ed Farmer; and Todd Cruz. We’re living in the apartment again, and… I’m also toying with the idea of doing a family tree with autographed balls, starting with my parents marriage in 1939 (Think Appling and Ted Lyons). My sisters Barb and Betty were born in 1942 and ’46, respectively, so that means more Appling and Lyons, with maybe Dario Lodgiani and Hal Trosky. Clare will mean Frank Thomas and….

Calling Dr. Boras, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine

Well, this is interesting. Scott Boras is having problems bluffing his way into a big contract for client Carlos Correa with the Mets after they became the second team to balk at formalizing a deal over worries about Correa’s health. And here I thought the problem concerned his back. But, No, what first caught the Giants’ attention and now the Mets’ is a right fibula that required surgery back in 2014. Me, that would be two reasons to walk away. Correa played 136 games last season, down from 148 in 2021. That’s in addition to the 109 games he played in 2017; 110 games in 2018; and 75 in 2019. My sense is that most of those games lost involve Correa’s back. Caveat emptor. Last week, Boras said, “There is no medical issue with Carlos,” as in “none.” He would know. Right?

Relevance

As the parent of an athlete, I was always struck by the casual cruelty embedded in sports. Teammates and opponents mocked, players humiliated by coaches blind to their own considerable imperfections. So, the notion of “Mr. Irrelevant” in football doesn’t exactly surprise me. The term refers to the last player taken in the NFL draft. This year, the title fell on quarterback Brock Purdy, drafted by the 49ers out of Iowa State. (What are undrafted free agents who get signed called? Lucky, I guess.) At best, Purdy was expected to be a third-string quarterback. Instead, injuries have forced him onto the field, and a good thing for the 49ers. In his last four games, three of them starts, Purdy has thrown eight touchdown passes against two interceptions. San Francisco has won all four of those games, the second half of an eight-game winning streak. Some teams can fall out of bed and find a quarterback. Then, there are the Bears. Go, Brock, go. If you ever need a walkup song, consider “Cruel to be Kind.”

Not Interested

I can’t seem to stop talking about the Mets. Now, they’ve scooped up Danny Mendick to go with Justin Verlander and Carlos Correa. Good for them. Stupid, as usual, for the White Sox. A team rooted in the South Side takes pride, or should, in its blue collar heritage. Sox fans prefer grind to flash, hustle to pimping. Mendick fit the bill perfectly. Naturally, he’s gone. Dollars to donuts that at some pint next season he rates a story in the NYT focusing on his style of play and noting how he’s come back from an ACL injury. Mets fans will love him just as much as Sox fans did. The Mets’ front office will value him where Rick Hahn didn’t.

Caveat Emptor

A few years from now, the San Francisco Giants will either be padding themselves on the back or kicking themselves elsewhere for nixing a thirteen-year, $350 million deal with shortstop Carlos Correa. I’m available, guys. The Giants were scared off by an unspecified medical issue that came up during Correa’s physical. Agent Scott Boras claims his client is fine; really, the Soviets could’ve used Boras’ power of spin back in the days of Andropov and Chernenko. Nothing to see, comrades, move along. The Mets, though, look to be buying, at a year and $35 million less than the Giants, provided Correa can pass a physical, to be conducted by Dr. Boras, no doubt. If Correa signs with New York, Mets’ owner Steve Cohen would have himself a team payroll in the neighborhood of $394 million, plus another $120 million for the baseball luxury tax, according to the Associated Press. It’s always nice to have a little spending money on hand, isn’t it? Again, the temptation is to call for a salary cap, and, again, the question becomes, to whose benefit? Cohen is sticking it to his fellow owners, none of whom needs a tag day. If Cohen really wants to set the sporting world on its collective head, he could underwrite ticket and concession prices at Citi Field. Winning baseball within reach of the average fan—the horror. It's Christmas. I can dream.

And Now For Some Discouraging Words

With a record of 12-18, the Bulls basically suck, and star guard Zach LaVine says it has nothing to do with his signing a $215 million contract in the offseason. Yes, it does. Reports are that LaVine’s lack of defensive effort this season led to a locker room incident Sunday at halftime of the Bulls’150-126 loss to the Timberwolves; nothing like giving up seventy-one points in the first half to get tempers flaring. Basically, the problem has taken on Gertrude Stein proportions—there is no there to LaVine’s defense. This is who he is and always was. The blame lies with the front office for thinking a big contract would somehow transform LaVine into a latter-day Norm Van Lier. Alas, Stormin’ Norman has left this mortal plane, but anyone who saw him play could tell you Zach Lavine is no Norm Van Lier. Shame on Arturas Karnisovas and his staff for deluding themselves otherwise. Have Karnisovas and Kenny Williams ever been spotted in the same room together? I wonder, because the current Bulls’ front office sure operates like the old White Sox front office under Williams did—here a trade, there a free-agent signing (though never of a true star), a general disdain for young players. You pray for lightning in a bottle—2005—while enduring all the other years. Karnisovas getting DeMar DeRozan is Williams signing Jermaine Dye, the stopped clock getting it right for once. Getting Nikola Vucevic is more along the lines of Adam Dunn. Lonzo Ball? Jeff Peavey with a different body part injured. To make things worse, Karnisovas and team gm Marc Eversley have borrowed a page out of Ryan Pace’s playbook. They don’t do media. Great, another team in Chicago that treats its fans as 21st century peasants. I could be wrong, but the unwashed seem to be getting plenty tired of it.

A Few Kind Words

The last Chicago Bears’ player to impress me as much as quarterback Justin Fields? Alex Brown and Charles “Peanut” Tillman, maybe, for being thoughtful and willing to address the media, no matter the final score of the game that day. But Brown and Tillman were defenders, willing to inflict pain on the opponents in order to stop them. I’m at that point in life where squirrels refer to me as “The Human Who Slows Down to Give Us a Chance to Cross the Street.” Giving or receiving pain is something I want to avoid whenever possible. Which brings me back to Fields. Oh, he can dish out the pain, but it’s more in the form of embarrassment and humiliation at escaping capture. Think Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, only Fields is Bugs with a considerably bigger vocabulary, Doc. Like Brown and Tillman, he faces the media, regardless. Unfortunately, these days it’s almost always after a loss. I liked Fields from the moment he skipped out on celebrating being drafted so he could start familiarizing himself with the Bears’ playbook. Granted, it hasn’t changed since being copied off that cave wall in France, but Fields showed he was serious about success. See Cade McNown for the total opposite. The Bears stink right now, losing seven in a row and counting, but their quarterback has been a revelation with his arm a well as his feet. The Bears’ Way is to treat the forward pass as heresy against George Halas, so to see Fields with fifteen touchdown passes is impressive, doubly so given that he has no wide receivers to speak of. And the running. A thousand yards with eight touchdowns. The man jukes, he slithers, he sidesteps, whatever it takes to gain yardage. I keep thinking Fran Tarkenton, only Tarkenton never rushed for more than 376 yards in a season. But the comparison holds in that Tarkenton, like Fields is now, played for some awful Minnesota teams early in his career. In time, the Vikings and Giants and then the Vikings again learned how to protect their most valuable asset. With luck, lots and lots of luck because we’re talking the McCaskeys here, the Bears will start doing the same, and fast. Because, once they do, Sunday afternoons in autumn could get really interesting around here.

What’s Next? Who?

The White Sox signed Andrew Benintendi on Friday, the Cubs turn around and sign free-agent shortstop Dansby Swanson yesterday. My point? Benintendi represents the biggest free-agent contract in Sox history, at $75 million and five years while the Cubs inked Swanson for $177 million at seven years. Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it? Two teams in the same city, both with deep-pocketed owners, but only one ever shells out the big bucks. Who knows, maybe you can take it with you. If not, I’ll just note here that the team playing in the 100-year-old-plus ballpark, not the ball-mall, is the one willing to go big. But, if you’re a Sox fan, you accept that your team operates from a belief in scarcity economics and move on. Which brings us to the next question: Who’s on second? Right now, we’re just this side of Lou Costello saying, “What,” to which Bud Abbott and the rest of us would be tempted to respond, “I don’t know.” Here’s my guess. Gavin Sheets and/or Jake Burger goes to San Diego in return for either Jake Croneworth or Ha-Seong Kim. I want to think Romy Gonzalez or Lenyn Sosa could step up. Only I don’t know. Who?

A Cup of Misdirection, with a Pinch of “In Your Face”

Oh, White Sox general manager Rick Hahn must be ever so proud of himself; I’m sure the entire organization feels the same. Just weeks after Hahn said the Sox most likely would try to improve themselves via trade rather than free agency, he signs Andrew Benintendi to the biggest contract in team history. The twenty-eight year old left-handed hitting Benintendi will be patrolling left field on the South Side for the next five years at a cost of $75 million. Caveat #1: There’s the threat of damaged goods here. Benintendi suffered a broken hamate bone in his right hand when playing for the Yankees in September. If lightning doesn’t strike twice, forget about what short-circuited Gordon Beckham’s career. Otherwise, keep that in mind come spring training. Caveat #2: Benintendi may or may not be vaccinated for COVID. The best I can find is that he wasn’t, as of August 7th. So, expect questions come spring training. From what I gather, Canada is no longer requiring visitors be vaccinated, which means the question is moot, sort of. It’ll be interesting, though, to see how Benintendi handles the media when they come a-calling. Keeping the caveats in mind, this looks to be a good signing. In essence, the Sox trade A.J. Pollock for Benintendi, who’s close to seven years younger. Pollock has 1010 career hits to Benintendi’s 778. Provided Benintendi’s not injured or a jerk, I approve. But one last thought here—why do the White Sox insist on operating in secrecy? Since when did fans and sportswriters become the enemy, to be kept in the dark about things for as long as possible? Oh, right, sometime after Bill Veeck sold the team.

Second Thoughts?

The free-agent contracts going to pitchers this offseason would drive any decent, rational baseball owner in the direction of a hard salary cap. Too bad owners are anything but decent or rational. Examples of the former I’ll leave to your imagination. As to the latter, you gotta be nuts to sign Jacob deGrom to a five-year, $185 million deal ($37 million a year) or Carlos Rodon to six years at $162 million ($27 million a year). But the Rangers and Yankees, respectively, look to be nuts. Consider that deGrom, who’ll turn thirty-five next June, is eighteen games short of a hundred career wins. Or that the now thirty-year old Rodon is forty-four games short of the century mark. Paying them to be like Justin Verlander won’t turn them into Verlander, who at least can claim the $86.6 he’ll be earning over the next two years ($43.3 million a season) is an accurate reflection of the 244 career wins he has under his belt. So, a salary cap a la football or basketball? If you could argue that it’d benefit fans, I might be interested. But the NBA has a cap, and ticket prices are even worse than baseball’s. I doubt the cost of a beer or a hot dog costs less at the United Center than at Guaranteed Rate Whatever. Would the cost of my cable bill go down with a hard cap? Or would the Marquee Network continue to be the leech on my wallet it has been over the past three years or so? The only thing a cap would accomplish would be to put more money in the owners’ pockets. As I like to say, if no cap on an owner’s profits, then no cap on a player’s salary. But, Yes, danger lurks down the path baseball is headed. At some point, the cost of a brat and a beer, along with a ticket, will cause a sport to collapse, and it may not even be baseball first. According to fatherly.com, the average cost of attending a game for a family of four—back in 2016, mind you—was $502.84 for the NFL, $339.02 for the NBA and $219.53 for MLB. How much do you think those figures have gone up over the past six years? Hard salary cap or soft luxury tax, fans are going to pay to follow their favorite team(s). They just don’t need to be as dumb as the Rangers and Yankees going about it.

No Place for Old Men

Move over, Luke Appling. You’re going to have company as an old man/shortstop. At least you will if the trio of free-agent shortstops make it to age forty playing that most demanding of positions. Trea Turner, now of the Phillies, will be forty when his contract reaches its final year while new-Padre Xander Bogaerts will be forty-one. Carlos Correa will be forty or forty-one, depending if his new team the Giants are in the playoffs, when his thirteen-year contract ends in 2035. Bryce Harper will be thirty-eight at the end of his deal with the Phillies, thirty-nine if they reach the playoffs. What are the odds of him playing the field past the age of thirty-five or thirty-six? What happens if Turner declines quicker? Who’ll DH? Just imagine Harper in the outfield at age thirty-eight with Turner, eight months younger, manning short. Gosh, I wonder if either one could end up at first base. Luis Aparicio won a Gold Glove at age thirty-six, Ozzie Smith at age thirty-seven. Will Bogaerts, Correa or Turner come close? We’ll have to wait and see, I guess. Aaron Judge’s contract with the Yankees pays him through age thirty-nine. My, but the All-Star Game is likely to have a lot of highly paid DHs towards the end of the next decade. Good to know I won’t be the only geezer around, if we’re all lucky.

On a Gray Day

On a December day given over to cold and drizzle, I’m tempted to think the internet would’ve altered the fate of Comiskey Park. As it is, there are numerous tweets of photos and video clips showing the park at is boisterous best. Just the other day, I read an online interview with organist Nancy Faust. Na Na Hey Hey. I imagine a social media campaign that could’ve overwhelmed the kneejerk desire for a ball mall. Tweet followed by TikTok followed by petition followed by whatever a good imagination could come up with. And all of it to be repeated, day after day until the powers that be wilted. On a December day given over to cold and drizzle, I tend to dream. Behind me on the wall are a group of pictures I took during the 1990 season—Carlton Fisk crouching behind the plate, Fisk and Ivan Calderon trying to dig in against Randy Johnson. In some ways, my favorite is the one showing four steps off the main concourse; nothing more separated the fan from a glimpse of the field up close. I want to say it took something in the neighborhood of twenty paces to go from the entrance to that top step. From 35th Street to a green cathedral. On a December day so wrapped in cold and drizzle, I find myself mixing memories with dreams of what might have been.

A Reckoning, Someday

Today, Trib columnist Paul Sullivan put the Mets’ payroll at $349 million, plus a luxury tax of $70 million. This led me to wonder, what would (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich) Hegel think or do? Why, he’d employ the Hegelian dialectic, which holds that thesis meeting antithesis leads to synthesis. Put another way, the Mets spend all that money, something’s got to give in the world of baseball. All those owners who will not or cannot spend like the Mets’ Steve Cohen are going to react. There will be a new normal in baseball. Only it won’t be as simple as A+B=C. Better to expect the unexpected. Cohen is placing a $400-million-plus bet that he can win a World Series or two or three. His spending on free agents drives up the price tag on other free agents. In some indirect way I can grasp, kind of, what Justin Verlander and Trea Turner pull down will affect arbitration awards for younger players. Again, the price of stadium hot dogs will go up. But for how long and how much? And what if the economy tanks? A new version of Jerry Reinsdorf, very hawkish when it comes to players, buys a team and rallies the owners or takes over from Rob Manfred? Some or all of these factors will change the economic landscape of the national pastime. As long as I can listen to games on the radio for free, that’s fine by me. Baseball will keep going. In exactly what form is a question I don’t have an answer for. I do know, though, it will all be very Hegelian.

Is This Anything?

With the winter meetings over, baseball news in these parts will disappear until the middle of next month, when the Cubs hold their fan convention. There’s also the possibility of a White Sox trade out of the blue, which is how Rick Hahn likes to do things. (Prediction here: Gavin Sheets to the Padres for a second baseman.) Otherwise, nothing. So, I now have time to consider the story of Olivia Pichardo, the first female baseball player to make an NCAA D-I team; Pichardo made the Brown University Brown Bears as a walk-on this fall. From what I saw, she has a nice left-handed stance. Clare probably stopped playing baseball around the time Pichardo was born. In all that time, no female baseball player has managed what Picardo’s done. To me, this means Clare would’ve face a whole lot of heartbreak trying to be Olivia Picardo. Too soon, my child, too soon. Knowing my daughter, I think she’ll be checking to see how Pichardo fares, come spring. As hard as walking on can be, getting playing time is harder still. A young mother watches a young ballplayer. Somehow, this will affect my grandson. Will Pichardo produce the first crack in baseball’s grass ceiling? Time, which moves both achingly slow and whiplash fast, will tell.

Broken Record

There goes Rick Morrissey of the Sun-Times, again, complaining about how the White Sox and Cubs don’t spend the necessary big bucks. I have to start clipping these columns to see if they ever change. Here’s Morrissey in his column today: “Neither team has ever committed to spending big money year after year, the way the Yankees and Dodgers have. That’s a sin, given that Chicago is the third-largest city in the country and given what the Cubs and Sox have put their fans through historically.” Last time I checked, sloth is a sin, too. Morrissey is too lazy to say how the big bucks could be spent, intelligently. Because that’s not something the Yankees are known for. The Dodgers are a different story. Here’s how you can tell. Name a young Yankees’ player you’d want. I can’t. Now, how about a young Dodger or two? Let’s see. Id’ go with starters Walker Buehler and Julio Urias; catcher Will Smith; and infielder Gavin Lux. Oh, and in August MLB.com ranked the Dodgers with the second-best minor-league system in baseball. The Yankees came in at twelfth, and that was probably with a lot of East Coast bias factored in. If Morrissey ever got off his lazy butt, maybe he could tell us what teams spend on player development and scouting. All I know is that the Dodgers develop players; develop prospects they trade (think Alex Verdugo and Connor Wong as part of the deal for Mookie Betts); and exhibit an uncanny ability to identify talented discards from other organizations—Max Muncy, Chris Taylor, Justin Turner. Then, they spend big money—intelligently, I might add—for the likes of Betts and Freddie Freeman. That’s what I want the White Sox to do. Maybe Rick Morrissey does, too, when he can rouse himself to write intelligently about it.

Money, Money, Money

Clare texted just as I were pulling out of the garage to drive Michele to the train: Judge staying with the Yankees. With nine years at a reported $360 million, I would, too. That comes out to $40 million a year, nice money if you can get it. Cody Bellinger, for one, can’t. The former Dodger signed a one-year deal with the Cubs worth $17.5 million, including mutual option and buyout. Back in the old days, we’d call this a “reclamation project.” Bellinger, who won the NL MVP in 2019, hit .165 in 2021 and .210 this season. What struck me about the deal is a comment Tribune beat reporter Meghan Montemurro made today, that the North Siders wouldn’t have signed Bellinger “if the front office and hitting infrastructure didn’t believe he was capable of applying swing and approach changes.” Hitting infrastructure? My God, analytics has trickled down to beat writers. Did the Cubs sign a player or a machine? It’s getting harder and harder to tell.

Color Me Skeptical

Something about free-agent contracts brings out the skeptic in me. If I were king (or an owner), I’d pay young players for performance—the way the Braves, and, to a lesser extent, the White Sox, do—and try to keep them under control for as long as possible. In other words, cash now for performance now, along with a shot at keeping players a season or two beyond arbitration. But I’m not king Justin Verlander for two years at $86.6 million? The Mets know they signed someone who turns forty in February, right? Oh, and Max Scherzer will be thirty-nine come late July. No whistling past the pitchers’ graveyard, there. Or consider Trea Turner, signed to an eleven-year, $300-million deal by the Phillies. Turner turns thirty in June. Will he still be playing shortstop in seven years? How about five? If I remember my Sox history correctly, Luke Appling turned into a statue at short. Between the ages of thirty-nine to forty-two, Appling never hit lower than .301, and management still couldn’t wait get rid of him. I wonder why? Age on the back end of these contracts is going to come back to bite more than a few big-spending teams. When that happens, I want to see the reaction. Right now, Mets’ fans are probably over the moon and couldn’t care less what ticket prices will be over the next decade or so; ditto Phillies’ fans. Guys, you may end up with some very expensive DHs, and that’s if you’re lucky. Either way, people will be paying an arm and a leg to watch these teams. In August, the New York Post calculated what it would cost to keep the current team together. Substitute Verlander for Jacob deGrom, and the projections remain pretty valid, in the neighborhood of $345 million. I want to see the price of a hot dog at Citi Field come Opening Day. Again, I’d pay players for actual performance from day one, but I wouldn’t be shoveling money their way for what they might do come age thirty-five, or thirty-nine or…

Caveat Emptor

Any semblance of sanity in major league baseball has left the room between now and Thursday, the duration of this year’s winter meetings in San Diego. The Rangers want to sign thirty-four year old Jacob deGrom to a five-year, $185 million deal? MLB.com is all a-giggle. Forget that deGrom has only started twenty-six games over the last two seasons or that he’s eighteen games short of hitting 100 career wins. The Rangers are serious, man. Ditto the news on Aaron Judge, that he’s likely to land a nine-year gig, which would make him forty when the deal ended. And where will Judge play in his twilight years, you may ask? It doesn’t matter. [Fill in team’s name here] are serious, man. Lucky for us White Sox fans our team doesn’t go in for this kind of nuttiness. No, we prefer to go searching for Rembrandts at the thrift store. The next Jermaine Dye is just around the corner, opposite Johnny Cueto and…

It Happens, I Know

The Illinois High School Authority (IHSA), the governing body for high school sports in the state, is considering a rule to tighten up on transfers and associated coaching hires. It seems some basketball teams are the product of such transfers. Who knew? We saw as much in softball during Clare’s playing days. One D-I bound pitcher changed schools, not that it bothered my daughter; she hit that pitcher like she owned her. And, then, after Clare graduated and was playing for a travel team for one of her new college coaches, the head coach for the softball powerhouse in our conference came up to her and said, “You should’ve transferred to our district.” Clare underwent baptism by fire as a freshman starter. Was that a good thing? I don’t know, but I doubt she would’ve played as much for that other team as an underclassman. And I doubt she would’ve had the experience necessary to hit that team as well as she did (two doubles and a homerun in one game I remember in particular) as an upperclassman. In other words, I’m happy—and I think Clare was, too—that she spent all four years as a Morton Mustang. But these are different times, my friend, different times.

The Classes Over the Masses

There was a small story, five paragraphs long, in yesterday’s Sun-Times: “Sox to build new outdoor bar at ballpark.” The times we live in. Too bad the story didn’t mention who’s going to pick up the estimated $284,500 tab because it’s doubtful the Sox will. They’re mere renters. Landlords do that sort of stuff in the everyday world, and I’m betting the public stadium authority will be doing the same here. But, unlike the real world, I wouldn’t expect any rent increases. Why, the team might move. What the story did note was the removal of eight rows of seats. The Sox, like most every other team in baseball, doesn’t much care about how many fans come into their park, as long as they’re the right kind, demographically speaking. The deeper pockets, the better. Comiskey Park could hold as many as 52,000 fans; Guaranteed Rate Whatever comes in at 40,615, minus however many seats those lost eight rows will come out to. Ticket prices rise while ballpark capacities shrink. Not how I’d run a team, but nobody’s asking.